


An Assassin Doesn't Need Your Protection

by whatTheFuckIsThis



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Aftercare, F/F, Interrogation, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 11:03:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18871906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatTheFuckIsThis/pseuds/whatTheFuckIsThis
Summary: Eve killed someone. She didn’t mean to, but Villanelle had been in danger and she couldn’t stop herself from drawing her gun and firing. Carolyn doesn’t see what happened as clearly as Eve and she’s ready to do what need to be done to get Eve to understand how dumb her decision really was.





	An Assassin Doesn't Need Your Protection

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The gun shots rang out, echoing around the hotel room and ringing in Eve’s ears, louder than she’d expected. She dropped the gun and collapsed to the floor. Even as she stared at the ugly hotel room carpet, the image of a gun pointed at Villanelle’s chest burned in her mind, and the woman she killed had yet to cross it. She heard people around her talking, first in hushed tones and then louder as the scent of blood spread through the air. One sentence stuck with her.

“What the fuck Eve?”

Even now, sitting in Carolyn’s nearly empty guest bedroom with nothing to do but think, she couldn’t remember what had happened after the shooting. She was in Paris, in that hotel room, with the cold body of Amber Peel and the warm bodies of agents and an assassin, and next she was locked in a guest bedroom, only seeing people for “chats,” as Carolyn called them. They were interrogations, and both of them knew that.   

Carolyn tried to get her to admit something, but Eve couldn’t tell what.

She’d killed someone, Eve knew that and Carolyn accepted that. She didn’t mean to, but- That was where Carolyn stopped buying her story. She would just respond with the same calm statement, followed by a question.

“A gun is a not a toy, it’s a weapon. Is that the first time you’ve fired a gun, Eve?”

It wasn’t. She’d started training with that pistol ever since she got back from stabbing Villanelle. She wasn’t a perfect shot but she was good enough to kill anyone who got close enough to try to kill her.

Eve never responded to the question when Carolyn asked it. She knew what Carolyn was really asking and implying and reminding her of. She wasn’t a field agent. She wasn’t supposed to be carrying a gun in the field. She wasn’t legally permitted to have a gun and, legally, she didn’t have one.

Carolyn would sit for a few minutes in the silence, then stand up without saying another word and leave the room. She would lock the door behind her and, after a few seconds of silence, Eve would hear soft footsteps shuffle away.

And so, she would be left alone again. Left to think about what she’d done. She’d killed Amber Peel. She didn’t mean to, but Villanelle was in danger and she had to do something. Amber was pointing a gun at Villanelle and even from the grainy black and white security footage, Eve knew Villanelle was about to die. She knows she would have.

She wished she felt guilty, at least then she’d have something to do instead of lounging on Carolyn’s white bed sheets staring at the white ceiling and white walls and boarded up windows, but she didn’t feel guilty. If anything, she felt excited. The rush of seeing Villanelle in danger and firing a gun into a woman’s chest was still noticeable even after two days of nothing but the same three questions over and over again.

Did you kill Amber Peel? Did you mean to kill her? Why were you carrying a gun if you didn’t mean to kill someone?

They hadn’t told the others what was going on. Carolyn had erased MI6’s involvement. Aaron Peel would think it was merely a drug deal gone bad, just one of many of his drug addicted sister’s mistakes. Carolyn, Konstantin, Villanelle, Eve, and Kenny were the only ones who knew what really happened. Everyone else thought she was on vacation, except Niko. He hadn’t bothered to pick up her phone call.

And now here she was. Laying on an old mattress in a nearly empty room picking at the skin at the edges of her fingernails. Her thumb was covered in dried blood. She’d bit the nail too far down, exposing the nail beds, so with every time she dragged it across the sheets, it stung. She thought of trying to turn the bed sheets red but instead she just collected the blood underneath her nails. She was surprised she hadn’t gnawed one of her fingers off by now. She’d spent hours picking at the skin and biting her nails. It was the only pain she could get after Kenny found her jabbing a pen in her leg and removed every slightly sharp object in the room.

It was fine, she thought. She’d be out of here soon enough. Villanelle would explain what really happened, or Carolyn would start to believe Eve’s story, and she’d be released and go back to work.

Seven p.m. on the dot the door clicked open and smell of take-out filled the room. Carolyn always insisted on delivering dinner herself. Eve knew the interrogation tactic: Give the suspect what they want, and they’ll be more likely to give you what you want. Unfortunately for Carolyn, Eve was already telling the truth.

“Eve, get up,” Carolyn ordered. Her tone was calm but a hint of frustration crept in.

She sat up on the bed and motioned for the food but Carolyn didn’t give it to her.

“We’re going to try something different this time,” she said. “Villanelle.”

The door opened again and Villanelle pranced in. Someone shut the door behind her and she heard the familiar sound of the deadbolt turning, locking them in.

“You’ve been very stubborn these past few days. I was hoping you’d get past that and we could have a chat like adults but I don’t see that happening. So instead, you’re going to talk to her.”

Eve couldn’t tell if Villanelle looked excited or nervous or if she was just trying to look nervous to throw Eve off. Whatever she was doing, it wasn’t working. Eve stared at Carolyn, daring her to do something.

Carolyn opened the bad of take out and started opening the containers. She took a big bite and waved Villanelle forward.

“You look like shit,” Villanelle said.

Eve knew she was right. She hadn’t had a shower in days. Her hair was a messy, unwashed and frizzy. She hadn’t changed her clothes since what happened, either. But she didn’t want to give her interrogator the satisfaction.

“So do you.”

“We both know that’s a lie.”

Villanelle took a seat beside Eve on the bed, giving her a better look at Carolyn eating what should have been her dinner. She took Eve’s bloody thumb in her hand, examining it casually and poking at the tiny wound, squeezing it until it opened again.

She wiped a drop of blood up with her finger and put it up to her mouth. Her eyes locked with Eve’s before licking the blood clean off and winking, first at Eve, then at Carolyn. Carolyn didn’t react. She just continued eating.

Villanelle turned Eve’s head to the side so they were looking at the each. They hadn’t been so close since she thought Villanelle had poisoned her. She wished they’d never left that moment.

“I’m going to ask you a question and I want you to answer me honestly. Can you do that for me, Eve?”

She nodded. How else could one respond to that.

Villanelle smiled and took Eve’s right hand in hers and ran her thumb across Eve’s pinky finger, as if she was giving the world’s tiniest massage, before curling her first around it.

“Did you shoot and kill Amber Peel?”

“Yes.”

Villanelle moved her grip to the ring finger.

“Were you authorized to carry a firearm in the field?”

“No.”

Onto the middle finger.

“Did you call for back up before arriving on the scene?”

“There was no time. You-” Snap.

An overwhelming pain filled her mind and she screamed. Tears welled up as she looked down at her hand and saw her middle finger bent farther back than fingers were supposed to bend. She stared at Villanelle and if she had been able to find the right words, she would’ve yelled.

Carolyn looked over at Eve, as if she was a toddler having a temper tantrum in an otherwise quiet grocery store.

“We’re going to try that again, Eve.” She’d moved on to the pointer finger, careful not to touch the broken one. “Did you call for back up before arriving on the scene?”

“There-” She stopped when she felt her finger bend back, pushing but not breaking the boundaries of its flexibility. “No.”

Villanelle smiled and turned to Carolyn who motioned for the interrogation to continue.

She moved onto the thumb.

“Did you think that Amber was going to kill me?”

“Yes.”

Eve waited for the snap but it didn’t come. When she looked up at Villanelle, the other woman was smiling. Villanelle let go of her hand and broke out in laughter.

“The gun wasn’t even loaded, you dummy. You think I just leave loaded guns lying around like a moron? Why would I do that?”

“I-I don’t know. I just saw the gun and I had to-” Snap.

The thumb hurt more than her middle finger and made her hand look wrong, more like a Halloween decoration than a real person’s hand.

“Villanelle,” Carolyn warned from her seat across the room.

“You didn’t have to do anything, Eve! You should have stayed in the other room! I would’ve handled her. I was handling her!”

“Villanelle,” Carolyn said, raising her voice by the smallest degree. “Remember what I said about keeping your temper.”

She mouthed “Sorry” and took a deep breath. Four seconds in, eight seconds out. Four seconds in, eight seconds out. Four seconds, …

“Good. Now get back to the questions.”

“Yes, mom,” she whined.

Villanelle moved on to the other hand, curling her first around the bloody thumb and waited until Eve’s eyes no longer looked fuzzy, like she wasn’t all there.

“Did you have any reason to think that I wouldn’t be able to handle her?” She asked in a tone that made Eve pause.

The previous questions felt prepared and overly formal, obvious attempts at getting clear statements of fact, but this one seemed like a genuine question Villanelle had, wrapped up in all nuances of the assassin.

So, for the first time Eve really thought about the question. Her choices had seemed so obvious in the moment but she was starting to remember the details she’d pushed aside in her panic. The gun Villanelle kept tucked in her waistband. The two armed agents waiting on the hotel room balcony to apprehend Amber at Eve’s signal. The distance between Amber and Villanelle, enough to give Villanelle time to dodge the shot. Even if she hadn’t barged in and shot Amber, Villanelle would have been safe. And she definitely wouldn’t be breaking Eve’s fingers.

“Eve, hello. Anybody in there.” Villanelle knocked on her head. “Answer the question. Did you have any reason to think that I wouldn’t be able to handle her?”

“No. I didn’t,” she whispered.

“Now that wasn’t too hard was it,” Carolyn said. She put the food down on the desk and walked over to the bed, towering over a sitting Eve. “Just a few more questions and then you’ll get your dinner. Or what’s left of it. Villanelle, go wait outside.”

“But you said I could watch,” she whined.  

“You’ve done your part.”

Villanelle left with no more complaints and Carolyn took her spot. She stared down at Eve’s broken hands.

“I really am sorry about that. But you absolutely refused to rethink your idiotic actions and something had to be done. I’ve found pain to be quite effective at getting people to question themselves. And it worked.” She smiled. “I like you Eve. You’re smart. Driven. Curious. And you’re not afraid to do what needs to be done, however unpleasant that might be. But you’ve made some truly awful decisions lately, most of them involving Villanelle. You ran off to Paris without telling anyone. You hired a prolific assassin to kill you. And now, this whole mess.”

Carolyn stared at her and Eve could feel the disappointment in her gaze. She busied herself with examining her broken thumb.

“Not that Villanelle has been at her best either. If she were, you’d be dead ten times over by now,” she said. “Look, Eve, I know what it’s like to have complicated feelings for someone you work closely with. Do you know what I do when that happens?”

She shook her head.

“I get to know them. Those feelings go away in no time.”

Eve didn’t think that would work in her case. She was barely willing to admit to herself that she felt… something more for Villanelle. Doing something about it seemed impossible.

Villanelle took up more of her thoughts than she wanted and as Carolyn asked her more detailed questions about what happened, all Eve could think about was her. The way her hand lightly wrapped around her fingers and then inflicted some of the worst pain she’d felt. The way her smile was always laced with a promise of something sadistic and shocking.

Carolyn was right. Complicated was the only way to describe her feelings for Villanelle. But she also feared, or hoped, that Carolyn was wrong. That this clusterfuck of emotions wouldn’t go away and she’d always feel… something for Villanelle.

…

The chat hadn’t lasted much longer and once she promised to not let Villanelle interfere with her work again, Carolyn left, leaving the food behind. Eve didn’t eat it, even though she was starving. She threw it in the bathroom trash and tried to tend to her wounds.

A few minutes later she heard a shy knock on the door, then the turn of the deadbolt as someone stepped inside. Villanelle found her in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the bathtub with a bottle of rubbing alcohol spilling on the ground.

All of her previous excitement was gone, leaving her with a solemn look a drooping appearance. She was wearing sweatpants and a plain shirt and she looked almost normal. The bandage on her head gave it away but Eve could still imagine her as a boring office assistant who got into an accident while biking to the gym.

“Can I help you with that?” Villanelle said, motioning to the now empty bottle of rubbing alcohol.

She didn’t wait for a response before finding a towel and mopping up the spill. She riffled through the cabinets and found a first aid kit, mumbling to herself about the outrageous number of band aids in the kit.  

“What did she give you?” Eve whispered.

Villanelle found an instant cold compress and pressed in against Eve’s hands, ignoring the question. It was barely colder than her skin but it helped a little.

“What did-”

“She didn’t give me anything.” Villanelle gave her a handful of pills and a glass of water. “For the pain. Take them.” Eve hesitated for a second, remembering what happened last time Villanelle gave her pills, before dry swallowing the pills. “I volunteered.”

“You what?” Eve dropped the glass of water, spilling it everywhere but leaving the glass intact. Villanelle got another towel and mopped the floor again.

“Someone was going to do it. Konstantin would’ve beat the shit out of you. Kenny is too soft. And Carolyn… I’m not sure what she would’ve done.”

She found a cast for Eve’s thumb and silently wrapped it around her forearm and hand. She did the same with stints for her other fingers. Eve wasn’t sure why Carolyn had all of this stored in her guest bathroom but she wasn’t surprised. This can’t have been the first time someone was tortured in that room.

“You’ll need to keep the stints on for a few weeks and then after that no strenuous exercise until they’re completely healed, so no sex with Niko for a while. Such a shame,” Villanelle said with no bite in her words.  

Eve hadn’t told Villanelle about their break, or whatever they were doing. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. And this was definitely not the right moment.

“I’m still mad at you,” Eve said, wincing as she did. She sounded like a child.

“I know.”

“I think we’re even now. For the stabbing, at least.”

Villanelle laughed. “We’re no where near even. I could’ve died. You could’ve killed me.”

“You could’ve died,” she whispered.

She was no longer talking about the stabbing and Villanelle could tell. She knelt down beside Eve and cupped her face. When Eve looked in her eyes, she could see the same fear she’d felt when a gun was pointed a Villanelle.

“It’s sweet how you worry about me but I’ll be fine. I promise. I kill people for a living, Eve. I know how to not die.” Villanelle smiled and Eve would have too if the severity of her actions hadn’t just hit her. She was willing to die for an international assassin who she barely knew and it terrified her. “You can’t keep making dumb decisions for me.”

“But you make dumb decisions all the time.”

“That’s because I’m better at it.”

This time Eve smiled. She scooted over and motioned for Villanelle to sit next to her. She took her seat on the edge of the bath tub and Eve leaned into her, slumping into Villanelle.

“Can I tell you something?” Eve whispered into Villanelle’s shoulder. “It felt really, really good. I never thought killing someone would feel so…”

“Empowering?”

“Yeah. That.” Eve sighed and moved to rest her chin on Villanelle’s shoulder, so she whispered almost directly into her ear. “That moment when I pulled the trigger and Amber crumpled to the ground was the best I’ve ever felt.”

“I always knew you were more like me than you wanted to admit.” Villanelle wrapped her arm around Eve and pulled her in close. “And if you’re going to anyone else, I want a better view next time.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Feel free to leave a kudos and comment.


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